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Not much to like new at the box office this weekend. Sorry. But if you get a chance, I recommend getting the DVD, “Taking Chance” with Kevin Bacon, which is a very moving Veterans Day/Memorial Day movie about a soldier who accompanies the body of a soldier killed in action in Iraq (or Afghanistan, I forget which) back to his hometown for his funeral. At some point, I’ll post a complete review of it on this site. It’s a FOUR REAGAN movie and less than 1.5 hours. As for what’s new at the movies, this week (I did not see Adam Sandler’s “Jack & Jill”):

* “J. Edgar“: There are four things you need to know about this complete joke of a movie: 1) it’s directed by gay marriage advocate Clint Eastwood, 2) the screenplay is written by Dustin Lance Black, who wrote the gay rights movie, “Milk” (read my review), 3) it’s long, boring, and I struggled to stay awake, and 4) there is absolutely no plot.

The movie is supposed to be the life story of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCrapio DiCaprio), who essentially founded the FBI and built it into what it became. Instead, it’s a dark, confusing sophistry about something–actually many things, including the immigration system (Dirty Harry doesn’t think we should strip dangerous, lying naturalized citizens of their citizenship and deport them), the Cold War (Dirty Harry believes J. Edgar was far too zealous in weeding out the Reds at a time when they’d infested our country, and gay rights). Clint Eastwood doesn’t outright say Hoover has a gay relationship with his FBI Assistant Director, Clyde Tolson (played by Armand Hammer heir, Armie Hammer). But he basically says it outright, showing the two of them holding hands more than once, a kiss between them, a lover’s quarrel when Hoover talks about marrying a woman, and scenes of Hoover eating breakfast at Tolson’s house while Tolson’s in his bathrobe. We get it, Dirty Harry, you think he was gay, despite no evidence that any of the above happened. I get tired of watching Clint Eastwood repent to the Hollywood left for once having played Dirty Harry.

When I wasn’t struggling not to fall asleep, I laughed at silly dialogue, such as when Hoover asks aloud, “Why do I kill everything I love?” Puh-leeze. Is this J. Edgar Hoover’s story or the defunct “All My Children?” Does anyone really believe J. Edgar Hoover would ever ask, “Why do I kill everything I love?” It’s ridiculous.

Then there was the conversation in which J. Edgar’s mother tells him that she doesn’t want her son to be a “daffy,” her word for gay. Did this conversation ever happen? There’s no record of it. It’s just made up. The same goes for the silly part in which they show Hoover putting on his mother’s dress and necklace after she dies. The movie’s producers assured retired FBI agents and Hoover’s foundation that they didn’t believe the cross-dressing allegations. Guess what? They lied, ‘cuz it’s in the movie, presented as fact.

I’m not sure what the point of the movie was, other than to show J. Edgar Hoover as an overgrown child and a closet gay . . . and bore us to tears in the process. The movie is well over two hours, without much to say. The most interesting part of Hoover’s life–how he persecuted Special Agent Melvin Purvis, for daring to bask in publicity for shooting John Dillinger, is skimmed over as if it were a mere footnote. Aside from that, the constant flashbacks and flashforwards are confusing and annoying.

If you want to learn about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, this isn’t where you’ll fin it.

FOUR MARXES PLUS A BIN LADEN

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Immortals“: This slow, uber-boring movie is “300” light–extra-virgin super-light. It’s another flick you see when you need a $10 cure for insomnia. And it’s very bloody and graphically violent. Do you enjoy watching a guy get a giant hammer plopped onto his penis? Me, neither. The movie is utterly pointless and completely skipworthy. That people applauded at the end of the movie at the screening I attended, shows that far too many Americans are easily entertained and placated morons. And as I always say, there’s no accounting for good taste in America.

Theseus is a Greek mortal chosen by Zeus to command the fight of his fellow Greek mortals against the ruthless, violent, heathen King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). He enlists the help of a virgin oracle (Freida pro-Palestinian Pinto), whose only purpose in the movie is, it seems, to give up her virginity to Theseus in a sex scene, because she’s tired of the visions. Puh-leeze. I laughed at her silly gobbledygook language that sounded like the language Anne Heche made up when she told Barbara Walters that aliens kidnapped her.

Theseus searches for and finds a magical bow with extraterrestrial arrows that have perfect aim. We also see Zeus and the other Greek gods intervening from time to time, not that I cared. The gods should have stayed home, and you should, too. Yaaaaawn. I’m tired just writing about this tripe.

FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR SLEEPING PILLS

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Like Crazy“: This story about how a student visa violation ruined a budding relationship between American and British college students (Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones) might have been interesting . . . if it wasn’t so filled with propaganda and BS about the immigration system in America.

If only the various sub-agencies in the Department of Homeland Security kept such a close eye on student visa holders and violators as they do in this movie. Sadly, they don’t. I wish it were nearly as strict as portrayed in this movie. And if only all student visa violators in America were semi-cute, manipulative British college students who love living in America and overstay just for the base desire to have sex with their American boyfriends. Reality check: many of the student visa violators are named Ahmed and Khalid, and while they love having sex with prostitutes and strippers at “The Pink Pony,” that’s not the real reason they overstay those visas. It’s far more sinister. I really wish we tracked student visa overstays like they do in this movie, but then-Michigan Republican U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham starved the computer tracking system of all funding at the instruction of his fellow Arabs at the Arab American Institute.

Other than that, the movie begins as interesting, but becomes annoying, manipulative, and tiresome. Anyone who truly believes the open borders and uber-lax immigration system of America is the reason a relationship fizzles, isn’t just “Like Crazy.” They are, indeed, crazy. And stupid and gullible, too.

FOUR MARXES PLUS A BIN LADEN

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Martha Marcy May Marlene“: There is no plot or point in this movie about a girl (played by the Olsen Twins’ real-life younger sister, Elizabeth Olsen), who escapes from a cult to live in her successful Yuppie sister’s and brother-in-law’s swanky summer rental in upstate New York. The cult is some weird group of people who farm and all have sex with each other, including the manipulative cult leader, who takes the girls’ virginity. Oh, and they also break into rich people’s homes, steal from them, and then murder them. The escaped sister acts abnormally because of her time in the cult, including going into the bed where her sister and brother-in-law are having sex. Ick. The end. The moral of the story: don’t join a cult. Gee, Hollywood, thanks for the tip.

A very weird movie that operated like a time bandit: it stole two hours from me I’ll never get back.

32 Responses

Thanks for recommending “Taking Chance” Debbie. I saw it shortly after it came out on DVD and was moved to tears. I later decided to buy it for my video library. Other than that it sounds like your motto of “watching bad movies so you don’t have to” was in full force this week!

LOL, I loved the funny Anne Heche reference! What a crazy biotch…and I always wonder why Hollywood never took her to task for being a “fake” lesbian. She’s one of Hollyweird’s worst (along with Maggie Gyllanhaal, Anne Hathaway and Kim Catrall.

I was interested in your review of “Martha Marcy-May Marlene”. Every review I read acted like it was the re-invention of the movies done perfectly. You cut through the BS. However, I am interested in Burke’s and Seek’s opinion on the film as well.

Ugh, that dopey “love and open borders” movie made me sick (reading the review, that is). I recommend and oldie but favourite of mine instead…”Green Card”.

I have read several reviews of “Martha Marcy-May Marlene” and once again, only Debbie gives you information no other critic will. This is the first time I have read anywhere that the cult breaks into rich people’s houses to rob and steal. Why do other critics fail to mention things like that? I think that’s kinda important and it’s not a spoiler as far as I’m concerned.

I’m sorry to hear “Immortals” was not worth it. It should be so easy to make the old myths and legends into entertaining movies, especially with today’s technology. I still remember watching “Sindbad” and “Jason and the Argonauts” with stop motion monsters and being thrilled. I was so disappointed with the remake of “Clash of the Titans”. It was nowhere near as good as the original and seemed to be nothing but a collection of special effects for special effects sake. And can we PLEASE stop with the 3-D?

I understand J. Edgar is becoming the inadvertent comedy of the year with people laughing at the dialog. Looks like I’m not missing anything by staying home.

Debbie,
I just discovered you while reading E.D. Hills Bio. I always liked her on Fox and Friends, I thought she was smart, good looking and had a great point of view on most subjects. I am very sorry to hear about her Cancer and wish her the best.

You come off like so many haters ala Matt thrill up my leg, and Keith who just flipped out weekly because he was high paid and nobody watched him, now replaced by Larry who I couldn’t stand for years, he is so intelligent, just ask him.
The other crazy’s like Madcow, and Mr. Ed are just slanted and you only hear them all, like you beat the leaders to death.
I used to watch the above nuts but just to hear them beat people up (competitors) was a waste of time. One thing in busines smart people learn is don’t knock your competitors, show them why you or what your peddling is better.
I possible could have become a fan especially saying such nice things about E.D. but you couldn’t resist the opportunity to knock other people. Too bad for you but good luck anyway, and say something nice about a rival or enemy each day and it will change your life for the better.

Robert Casale, your post proves that you don’t know very much and you think like a silly teenage girl. If you are a full-grown man that is pathetic. Milquetoast girly-men like you are why America is going down in flames.

When you dismiss this site in your pre-pube way, YOU are the one that loses. You lose out on learning hard-core truths and vital inside information. You ought to have the maturity to be able to agree to disagree and still feast on the meat and potatoes that this site offers. The information learned HERE is so much more important than if the host is the nicest person on the planet.

Which brings me to my last point. Phonies like YOU who want people to say “nice” things about people they may not like. I’d like to see how much YOU do that in real life. It’s so easy to have that foolish mentality when YOU prolly never are around people who you don’t like. And you prolly haven’t been through the nasty stuff DS has been through. She is tough because she has to be tough. You phonies make me so sick.

I reject your stupid premise and I HOLD you to live in the way you *pretend* to live like. And if you do live that way, you are a fool and a wuss.

Jon, with Hollywood luminaries honoring Vanessa Redgrave, you don’t have to wonder why its such a perverted place. Anti-Semitism remains the last respectable form of bigotry on earth. They know all this but decided to bestow on her an undeserved honor.

Robert, what the hell are you saying bro? First off this topic is NOT about ED Hill, it’s about the movie reviews that Debbie herself wrote and linked here on this blog of hers. Secondly, why the phuck are you equating Debbie Schlussel to Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schlutz? You’re comparing chicken to red-meat stupid, Debbie is way more intelligent and way more respectful than those far-left louts you mentioned. Third, when DS wrote the article about ED Hill, she said, “Pray for ED Hill”, far as I am concerened, Debbie showed alot of respect and class when she wrote that article almost two years ago, she NEVER criticized Ms. Hill in that article she wrote about her. So Robert Casale, you need to re-read that article and improve on you’re reading comphrenshion skills alot more. And Skunky is right, your message is that of a teenage punk girl, and if you’re a full-grown man, than it’s embarrassing and pathetic, and if you have a wife and kids, I pity them all for them accepting you’re own stupidity, etc.!

I would suggest that you get your medications checked sleep things off in a drunk tank before posting here Robert. What you wrote was so incoherent that one would have to assume that you were on Thorazine or coming off of a bottle of Everclear.

Robert Casale, I want you to know that there is at least one person who appreciated the sly humor of your post, and that person was me. Not many, I guess, can correctly interpret intentionally buffoonish, self-deprecating irony, and that’s apparently why your post caused such impassioned reaction from so many regulars here. You spend all the energy of your comments hilariously deriding a long list of foolish tv commentators (Matt “thrill up my leg,” “Mr. Ed,” “Madcow,” Kieth “he’s so intelligent just ask him,” etc. etc.) and then end up with an apparently earnest plea to “say something nice” about a rival each day and “it will change your life.” Please come back and post weekly.

I was at the screening you attended for J. Edgar. I thought Leo played J Edgar well, the story was a bit in the lagging department. I kept looking at my watch thinking how much longer will this go on for?

Also, as a sidebar, I’d like to make a public service announcement. What is it with this group of people I like to call “The Movie Clique”?

We all paid the same price to get into the theatre. This group of people, whom I’m sure you’ve had more than one encounter with and know exactly whom I speak of, think it’s an entitlement to be at these screenings.

The most annoying of these bunch are the ones that will roll up to the movie theatre about 10 minutes or so before the doors open up and just CUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!!!

I used to let this fly, as it was mostly elderly woman that were doing this, but enough is enough already!

Sorry for using your movie review as a soapbox, but I figured your review forum was a good place to vent as you’re at many of these same screenings.

These are also the people that will bring in SUBWAY and stink up the movie theatre, TALK through the entire movie, answer cell phones…ERGGGGGHHH

It’s almost enough for me to give up going to these advance screenings and simply pay the 5 bucks for a matinee showing on the weekend.

I have not heard one good review about J. Edgar Hoover. The only thing I will note is that those of us in Washington, DC knew that Tolson was his boyfriend. How?

Many of us knew where Hoover lived. It was no secret. We knew he took vacations with Tolson. We knew Tolson slept over. People saw him rubbing suntan lotion on Tolson, on his chest, at poolside. In his will, Hoover left everything to Tolson (or was it vice versa). There are no secrets in our once little town.

Additionally, Hoover was obsessed with blackmailing gay people with whom he disagreed, or outing them. A bit of self hatred there.

So, the movie stinks, but to say that there was no evidence that Hoover was gay is not correct. The man was as queer as a three dollar bill, and most of us who grew up in this town knew it.

Boring as J. Edgar is bound to be, I’m unconvinced that Eastwood/Black overplayed the gay angle to the story. While the most common citations for believing in a Tolson/Hoover relationship can be explained away in the context of a very close friendship, some things cannot. As Black put in a recent interview, “And the collection of photographs that Hoover had of Clyde Tolson sleeping tells me a little something.”

Straight dudes don’t do this. And in the lives of people we actually know to have been gay at that time, there was rarely if ever anything amounting to a smoking dick…er, gun. Just lots of suggestive closeness to a guy that parallels what you described above.

Messy and plotless, I have no doubt. Boring, like paint drying. Unfairly maudlin and ridiculous, sure sounds like it. But at least, from your review, a minimum of gay rumor-mongering.

I would’be loved to go see “Immortals” because just like any decent dude, I love movies about ancient gods and men. I’ll still go, if only because it would be much better than the “Planet of the Na’vi”… oops, “Planet of the Apes” reboot/revision/abomination.

But maybe this weekend, I’ll just listen to classical music and opera: I’m too broke to head out to the movies, and my computer had gone malign because the video card has run up the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

So, no TORRENT for me. Damn.

PS: looking back, is it just me or is “Dirty Harry” more parody than cop drama?

I have seen the trailer for “Jack and Jill” and agree with with Barry Popik and The Reverand Jacques. I don’t think that it’s necessary for Debbie to review that movie. Debbie says that she didn’t see the movie and I hope that it stays that way. Like Barry said, Debbie watches bad movies so that we don’t have to, but watching that movie would be ridiculous even if being paid as a movie reviewer. From the trailer alone it looks like it’s at least two Marxes.

Having seen the trailers to Jack and Jill six or seven times over the last few months, I’m just very pleased and relieved that the actual movie is finally showing so that the these trailers will finally stop. Talk about wanting part of your life back.

Thanks for the reviews Debbie. As usual Hollywood has not changed and is still making lousy movies. I guess Clint Eastwood figures he better make movies that cater to the radical left or he will not be making movies at all. I seem to remember the Communist Party spreading rumors about Hoover having a realationship with Tolson which was completely false.

Imagine if Hoover was still alive and around to see what has happened to America? What would he say?

Well, I didn’t hate “Martha Macey May Marlene.” It was overly long and slow moving (maybe it’s only overly long BECAUSE it’s slow moving) and just because Elizabeth Olsen CAN act unlike her heroin-chic looking older twin sisters, doesn’t mean she’s Oscar caliber acting, which the critics are falling over themselves about. Mostly, her character acts numb. But it wasn’t the worst movie of the year – I reserve that for the horrible “Take Shelter” which is not only long, and slow, and horribly acted, but which flat out steals its whole premise from “The Last Wave.”

The cult is Manson-like, but unlike most movies which have the leader coming off as some bug-eyed mystic, this leader is slyly, and criminally manipulative to a fault. There are little things in the movie, like how he immediately changes the name of each female who shows up, even before they’ve been initiated, how he calls a song “Marci’s Song,” even though it has no connection at all to her, how he gets to women to both subjugate themselves while telling them that their leaders, is probably as realistic as a movie can get about actual cult manipulation.

The other thing is that the movie does not use itself as a platform to skewer bourgeois society: when Martha comfronts her sister’s husband about materialism, he shoots her argument down with the simple observation that she is living under his roof, at his expense. And the movie doesn’t fall into that predictable anti-male screed of trying to say that all men manipulate and abuse women: even though Martha appears nude in front of the husband, drinks with him and is left alone with him, he never tries to take advantage of her.

In fact the contrast between the two males is striking: the husband is working very, very hard to build something (an apartment complex? I forget) that will have a benefit in the stream of commerce. The cult leader is fumbling around on a farm in order to shut himself off from society, sustained not by honest labor, but by servitude, burglary and murder.

Debbie, the four main points you listed right at the beginning of your post of “J. Edgar” perfectly summarized the film’s flaws. It may be that Hoover was a closet gay, or it may not be, but making that speculation the center of a long, rambling biopic degrades important history into prurient tabloid. Generally Eastwood’s films frustrate me because of their simple-minded liberal-populist slant. This film was as bad as the worst of his others. The scene with Hoover trying on his mother’s dress which the filmmakers invented was complete, pandering trash–pandering to those who wanted to see Hoover as a cross-dresser because that was the myth that Susan Rosenstiel lied about and started. In other words, it was back-door garbage unethically sneaked in because the original circumstances that were invented by Rosenstiel have been utterly discredited. Recently I read a commenter who claimed that “Hollywood is not universally liberal; just look at Eastwood who made Dirty Harry and appears sometimes on Fox.” Now that is just plain clueless.

Singh who directed “Immortals” earlier made “The Cell” and “The Fall.” His auteur style is to make excruciatingly tedious and cliche-filled films with astonishingly beautiful sets. I’m seeing the show later today with my nephew, and I’m going to warn him not to pay any attention to the story or characters but to study the costumes, colors, fantastical topography of Greece and weirdly original special effects–that’s where the real action is in his films.

I can see your point of view in criticizing “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” Debbie. I don’t find cults per se very interesting myself, and a movie about them wouldn’t normally have much appeal. What I liked especially about the film, though, was the dynamics of the couple trying to raise their niece without understanding her background. I thought the couple was realistically portrayed with complicated and nuanced strengths and weaknesses. They seemed to me to symbolize the great numbers of those in the middle class in our country and world who get up each day to work, take on responsibilities (like helping out needy people in the extended family), and try to be decent human beings just plugging along despite all the compromises that are forced due to everyday demands. I sympathized with them, flaws and all, as unsung heroes in a darkening world. Martha, on the other hand, symbolized for me the hordes of teens and college students seduced by utopian promises of socialists and radicals. So the film for me dramatized the conflict between generations and ideologies, and it did so in a way which suggested society is closer to a potential powder keg than we might want to believe. Then also there’s the atmosphere of the film which is unbearably intense and unnerving even while the events of the film are ordinary and understated. Psycho and Repulsion wouldn’t sound that especially interesting if you simply described their plots and themes. This film, I felt, was as effective as either of those two.

Oh, and another thing. There was a small bit of dialogue in “Martha Macy Mae Marlene” that I missed the meaning of but my wife didn’t. In the cult farm, a new initiate comments on a baby boy, and Martha says that the leader “only has boys.” I thought it was an observation of a weird coincidence, but my wife said it’s because the cult practices female infanticide.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think that the movie is a scathing commentary on the counter-culture who decry society and civilization while behaving in despicable and criminal ways.

gmartinz, I really enjoyed your take on the movies. Thanks. Especially your thoughts in the last post.

Burke, as always, very interesting! And I loved your comment on Singh because I hated the movie “The Cell” but I absolutely loved the weird and creepy imagery! That is a great film to have on a ginormous flat-screen with the sound off and some good Nick Cave blasting out of the speakers.

JeffE, your TORRENT made me LOLOL! The Rev is so human! His post was almost like a video. And The Rev always makes me smile because he is very thrify and reminds me to watch my dimes and pennies and on the weekends you can almost feel how he loves his down-time. Good stuff!

I have seen “Taking Chance”. As a Vietnam veteran tears were not fought back at various points in the movie. Being honored by pilots, passengers and especially the family were scenes that tugged hard at the heart. Bacon played the role well. As a humble soldier, a regular guy with uncommon valor. Like studying the Iwo Jima Memorial and knowing that the thirteenth hand is the hand of God.

I actually liked Immortals but maybe I’m bias since I’m friends with one of the writers. That one scene when he gets hit in the groin was too much but I liked the story and I like 300 war type movies. There is a lot of biblical references in the movie if you really pay attention. Certain characters represent, Jesus, God, Mary, Judas and a few others. I wrote to him the other day and he said yes there is as much scripture as mythology in the movie. I have notice people either really like the movie or really dislike it. I didn’t know that about Pinto and I really liked her until I read what you said about her. I know for a fact that my friend is anti Muslim/pro Israel from his facebook post/links he has put on his wall.

Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates.
I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this.

Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly
enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.